“I presume he doesn’t enjoy the business he is in?”

“No; he complains that he has lowered himself by accepting such a place.”

“It doesn’t occur to him that he lowered himself when he stole money from his father, I suppose.”

“It doesn’t seem to.”

Later in the day Herbert came across Col.  Warner in the corridor of the hotel.

“Ha! my young friend!” he said, affably.  “I am glad to meet you.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“And how is your friend?”

“No change since morning,” answered Herbert, slightly smiling.

“By the way, Herbert—­your name is Herbert, isn’t it—­may I offer you a cigar?” said Col.  Warner.

The colonel opened his cigar-case and extended it to Herbert.

“Thank you, sir, but I don’t smoke.”

“Don’t smoke?  That is, you don’t smoke cigars.  May I offer you a cigarette?”

“I don’t smoke at all, colonel.”

“Indeed, remarkable!  Why, sir, before I was your age I smoked.”

“Do you think it good for consumption?” asked Herbert.

“Ha, ha, you have me there!  Well, perhaps not.  Do you know,” said the colonel, changing the conversation, “I feel a great interest in your friend.”

“You are very kind.”

“’Upon my soul, I do.  He is a most interesting young man.  Rich, too!  I am glad he is rich!”

“He would value health more than money,” said Herbert.

“To be sure, to be sure!  By the way, you don’t know how much property your friend has?”

“No, sir, he never told me,” answered Herbert, surprised at the question.

“Keeps such matters close, eh?  Now, I don’t.  I never hesitate to own up to a quarter of a million.  Yes, quarter of a million!  That’s the size of my pile.”

“You are fortunate, Col.  Warner,” said Herbert, sincerely.

“So I am, so I am!  Two years hence I shall have half a million, if all goes well.  So you won’t have a cigar; no?  Well, I’ll see you later.”

“He’s a strange man,” thought Herbert.  “I wonder if his statements can be relied upon.”  Somehow Herbert doubted it.  He was beginning to distrust the colonel.

CHAPTER XXII.

A mountain stage.

We pass over several days, and change the scene.  We left Herbert and Melville in the Palmer House in Chicago, surrounded by stately edifices and surging crowds.  Now everything is changed.  They are in a mountainous district, where a man might ride twenty miles without seeing a house.  They are, in fact, within the limits of what was then known as the Territory of Colorado.  It is not generally known that Colorado contains over a hundred mountain summits over ten thousand feet above the sea level.  It is perhaps on account of the general elevation that it is recommended by physicians as a good health resort for all who are troubled with lung complaints.